And even “Charging of the 85kWh battery takes half an hour on a supercharger for a 270 kilometer range”.

That would definitely be competition to Tesla (like a mirror reflection). If only Youxia Motors will be able to deliver and will get incentives as a Chinese manufacturer, Youxia X could turn int a real thing.

The renderings make it look like a pretty nice design. It’s size and company logo, combined with the grille say it’s a Tesla “knock-off”, but I contend it’s unique enough to be a car in-and-of-itself. The center screen, graphics and interior design speak Tesla, mainly because of the driver interfaces.

The implementation, in the form of the actual concept car shown in the photos, looks just gross. The huge tires, and the whole feel of a very large, very cumbersome sedan with ghetto-sized tires and supersized wheels off a Lincoln Mk IV. There are no sleek, Jaguar-esque hatchback lines, it’s a hot mess. Add the concept-car gizmo stuff like the LED, “K.I.T.T.” electro-grille and the tiny, not-ready-for-legal-use side mirrors, and this thing looks more like a comic book machine than a serious competitor to anything.

This is a prototype, when its ready, if it ever will be, it will use lead acid batteries, have a range of 5miles and made out of old cardboard boxes and shoestrings. I would be more than happy, if such things would ever work, but a 28 year old with, probably, 49 designers and one person who was once janitor at BYD, can’t do something Tesla can’t, or BYD or Nissan or anybody else.

I hope they will share Superchargers with Tesla. It takes one to show the others the best way to charge on an awesome network.
Other big American/european car makers hurt their own customers by not joining Tesla, only in selfish and useless efforts to make tesla fail.
Wouldn’t be to adopt the best possible standard to recharge all brands?

Geez..for sure if I was a Chinese billionaire I would just fund this car project to an unlimited extent just to shut up all the scorn I can read in some comments above. I am sorry to have to write this but as a “west” European I am amazed to which extent so many comments in North American EV sites are self (US) centered and so contemptuous on whatever comes from China. Just give them time. Do not forget raccoon was ordinary diet not long ago in most NA. They (the Chinese) actually do fantastically well ( Which maybe explains part of the scorn).

Insofar as Chinese companies innovate on their own, I agree with you. When they take another company’s design, and replicate it (granted, it is yet to be seen what the chassis and drive train look like, but they have copied quite a bit about the Model S – even their emblem ‘Y’ is reminiscent of the Tesla ‘T’), that is theft. The outcome will be loss of profits for Tesla and it’s investors, loss of jobs, and damage to the future potential innovation here.

Elon wants more EVs, this a good looking cheaper Tesla clone, which will lead to more EVs. So this is what Elon wanted and i dont think that a single other car can lead to the destruction if Tesla as you painted the picture…

“When they take another company’s design, and replicate it (granted, it is yet to be seen what the chassis and drive train look like, but they have copied quite a bit about the Model S – even their emblem ‘Y’ is reminiscent of the Tesla ‘T’), that is theft.”

“that is theft”? No. They may or may not have have infringed Tesla Intellectual property right. But from just looking at the car, we have no evidence to support that assertion. Everyone copies from from everyone. That is how we progress forward. You take the current state of the art and advance it. I’m sure Tesla copied lots of things from other auto-makers.

This car is clearly different than the Model S. It is not the same exact design. They were clearly inspired by the Model S but there is nothing wrong with that.

I agree, about the only design aspect I can see that is similar to the Tesla S is the nose cone. For the rest, Model S is way more similar to an Aston Martin or Audi A5 (both models existing before Model S was issued) than this car is similar to the Model S. So, again, the scorn I can read above is unjustified.

I don’t disagree that they copy well. It is the copying I scorn. It is blatant, and seemingly culturally accepted by the Chinese. But, this behavior will ultimately not work in world ruled by intellectual copyrights.

I mean, you can go to China and visit (what appears) to be an Apple store (right down to the Genius Bar where employees in blue shirts wear badges with Apple logos on them). But, it’s just a slick copy. A store selling (perhaps genuine, perhaps not) Apple products. It is outright theft of brand, and ideas.

This Tesla “knock-off” is just another example of a slick copy, and intellectual theft. Sorry, but no matter how well technically executed it might be, it garners no respect from me.

Everyone copies. I find it funny that you bring up Apple being copied as if Apple was some saint.

The Macintosh was filled with ideas copied from the XEROX PARC research laboratories.

Steve Jobs was fond of the quote “Good artists copy, great artists steal.” He even stole that quote from Picasso.

We have copyright and patent laws that allow companies to secure, for a limited time, a government sanctioned monopoly on some things. But beyond those protected intellectual property aspects . . . all’s fair in love & war.

I agree Apple copied. But, it’s not like what XEROX had was a marketed, successful product. AFAIK, it was languishing away in a lab, because XEROX corporate was clueless to its potential. This is far different from a one company knocking-off another company’s ALREADY successful product, right down to imitating the branding.

You seem to think the rampant, wholesale theft of intellectual property and industrial secrets by the Chinese is merely a matter of degree, not kind. Yes, it’s true that American companies practice reverse engineering, and patent rights often have to be enforced in court.

But those rights are enforced in court, in the USA and other Western countries, where international copyright and patents are actually respected. Contrariwise, in China, it’s not so much that copyright and patent are not properly enforced, as that Chinese culture simply doesn’t recognize the existence or value of what we call “business ethics”. You’d never see a counterfeit Apple store operating openly in any Western country. The business practices in China amount to “Caveat emptor” on steroids. Chinese businessmen think anything they can get away with, in cheating the customer, is okay. Counterfeit goods are especially rampant in the area of consumer electronics. In fact, the Chinese have become so adept at producing counterfeit electronics that in some cases it has become difficult to tell the difference even with testing equipment. Too bad they can’t, you know, apply that kind of cleverness and innovation to producing their own inventions and products.

China produces a large number of engineers and technically skilled graduates every year, yet their actual level of innovation is shockingly low. China is now the #1 producer of patents, but only because of the activity of patent trolling.

Only in China (and its client state, North Korea) do we see the government using military hackers to steal trade secrets from Western companies. Only in China does it appear that the biggest business innovations are figuring out new ways to cheat their customers!

Maybe someday, China will grow up and start acting like a responsible member of the international business community. Meanwhile, you may note that despite China’s growing industrial output, they have yet to market a highway-capable Chinese-make car in any Western country. Not a gasmobile, not an EV. So long as they continue to flagrantly ignore patents and copyright, that’s going to continue to be the case. For example, BYD’s attempt to sell BEVs and PHEVs in the USA was blocked when it was discovered their cars contain unlicensed patented parts.

So, if there’s a certain amount of contempt expressed by those who actually know how Chinese business works, then to a large extent it’s richly deserved.

But don’t take my word for it. Google [chinese counterfeit products] or [chinese military hackers] or [china innovation problem] for yourself.

North Americans appreciate true innovation and originality. True trail blazing in a given industry– is highly respected, in general. But the logical inverse, is that they see blatant (often inferior) copies as merely being derivative efforts that should almost never be rewarded. Unless there is something exceptional / better about the copy… “Better”, being highly subjective, explains why some will complement it, while others will not.

But, you have to admit, this particular “clone” looks an awful lot like a Model S, right down the black plastic nose cone, and pattern of chrome, the shape, even the red brake calipers (Tesla’s signature color). And, to ad insult to injury, the Y logo looks like the Tesla T. At a quick glance, you might say “oh Tesla Model S”, before realizing you’ve been fooled.

Right. They’re trying to capitalize on both the look of the Tesla Model S and the advertising for the Tesla Model X.

Yeah, American auto makers practice copycatting on style, too. But under the skin, the various American auto companies do actually develop their own engineering. They don’t just mindlessly reverse engineer and copy everything the way Chinese manufacturers do.

+1
I am amazed myself sometime when I read some comments here on how everything not made in ‘murica is ugly and bad.

Protectionism at his worst. Maybe some people should take a look at the calendar… Chinese have passed the point of high tech innovation and creativity that Koreans, Taiwanese and Japanese all went through, being at half-enslaved first as cheap labor by “good” american exploitant companies selling crap right here to you good patriots (making a lot of profit with your money for only a hanful of rich c*** s******, externalizing all the pollution), then taking their own destiny in charge and surpassing what is done in the United States of ‘murica.
Even Musk is from Africa!

It’s not at “America = best” it’s “clones are unimaginative, dishonest, and lazy.”

Huge difference!

I’m American and enjoy German cars but when the Chinese clone a car so exactly that the OEM parts fit the clone, that is not inspiring at all. Why don’t they come up with fresh ideas like pretty much every other first world country (NOT just America)?

“In the early days of industrial revolution, Americans cloned many of the “British” industries.. Once American become strong enough, then it started to lead/innovate on its own…”

While I agree that in the “wild and woolly” days of the Industrial Revolution, American businessmen and entrepreneurs flagrantly violated what today would be called “intellectual property”, American invention was world-renown from the very beginning. “Yankee ingenuity” was a cliche, for a very good reason! Americans didn’t just copy British and French inventions; they improved upon them.

I’d also like to point out that in the Industrial Revolution era, international copyright and patent rights did not exist.

Now, there certainly is a point to be made here that China is going through its own “wild and woolly” industrial revolution era, so some of its excesses should be excused. But there is no excuse whatsoever for wholesale mindless copying of what Western engineers and inventors have achieved, with no innovation at all on the part of the Chinese.

Who says there is no improvement? Price is one of the biggest improvement…

I don’t defend the poor counterfeiting that Chinese producers do. But in general, if you actually study the Chinese counterfeiting business (which I had to do for various Chinese counterfeit electronic components in our company products), there are many levels of them. Some of them are just poor engineering, some of them are actually decent enough to meet spec, but others can exceed spec but you won’t get nearly as good a “discount price”. The counterfeit goods happens at all price levels…

If you ever pay a visit to the Chinese stores in China, you can find a knock offs from few dollars to hundreds of dollars. They come in at different prices point and quality level.

The problem is that until Chinese brands can estabilish their own credibility, nobody is willing to pay a premium for their design or products. Without a premium which leads to profit margins there is NO money to be made. That is why you don’t see any “home grown” Chinese technology.

Also, Chinese government has poor policy which doesn’t encourage long term investment. It is all about making money quick. So, there is very little incentives for even the good Chinese companies to survive. I think they slowly start to realize that but it will take time for them to reign in the culture that has been around for at least the last 20-30 years or so. Without IP protection, China will never have its own home grown tech industry.

ModernMarvelFan, thanks for your input. It’s good to hear from someone who actually has experience in the field.

My comments about lack of Chinese innovation were, of course, a glittering generality and obviously there are lots of exceptions. It’s not that Chinese innovation is entirely missing, but that it’s shockingly low considering the amount of resources China expends on educating its younger generation in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Math) subjects. In any Western country, such an investment would have a huge reward in scientific and technological innovation. Of course, we must emphasize that this is not due to result of any ethnic or “racial” genetic deficiency, but a problem with the Chinese culture suppressing innovation. You touched on one of the reasons for that, with the lack of support for long-term investing.

As I see it, the worst problem with rampant counterfeiting is that it attacks the very characteristic that makes brand names valuable. If you buy, for example, a Coca-Cola or a Pepsi, then you can be pretty sure you know what you’re getting. One Coke Classic tastes exactly like another. Contrariwise, if you buy a store brand or “off brand” soda, you can’t be sure what it’s gonna taste like before you open it.

When counterfeiting is so rampant and, in some cases, so hard to detect, it lessens the value of all brands. If you bought a case of Coca-Cola and discovered the cans inside were cheap knock-offs, and this happened frequently, you might not be so eager to buy Coca-Cola. Coke’s dedication to quality wouldn’t mean much if customers couldn’t be sure that when they buy something labeled “Coca-Cola” that it will be the real thing. Coca-Cola’s reputation would suffer, and they would not be properly rewarded for maintaining a high level of quality.

Sooner or later, of course, China’s business culture will “grow up”. International competition will force it to, because they can’t compete on quality on the international market with the situation the way it is now. But until they do grow up, until they turn away from the practice of cheating the customer whenever they think they can get away with it, then they shouldn’t be rewarded by giving them money when there’s no assurance that customers will get what they pay for.

That is why Chinese consumers don’t trust their own brands and why the wealthy few would go shop in Hong Kong or Japan for stuff that is still made in China but cost more. They believe the quality control and brand name.

So, it is already Chinese companies. Some see the issue but it will take decades to correct as long as the policy only enourage short term money making over long term investment.

To be fair, copying of new body and trim design styles is practiced by American auto makers quite routinely, and that’s been the case for decades. We don’t, however, see the close copying of interior style seen in the Youxia X, nor do we see auto makers’ logos copied so closely as to constitute trademark violation. At least, I presume Tesla’s “T” logo is trademarked.

one of the nice things about BEVs is that they simplify international homologation; you’ve still got to deal with the vehicle safety rules, but you don’t have to deal with catalytic converters and emissions rules.

the front grill seems a bit problematic to me; i would think that Tesla would have trademarked that design.

The computer renders look nice, but lack certain things that will be needed in real life, such as door handles and side mirrors.

And I suspect that the actual car will be similarly lacking in features claimed by this ad. Range equal to a Tesla Model S? Capable of being recharged in only 30 minutes? They’re talking the talk, but let’s see if they can walk the walk. In particular, it seems extremely unlikely any driver will be able to fully charge the car in only 30 minutes, because Tesla Superchargers won’t be available for this car, and where else could you charge a large EV battery pack that rapidly?